In order to quell Hakkar the Soulflayer, the trolls of the land banded together and sent a contingent of High Priests into the ancient city of Zul'Gurub. Each priest was a powerful champion of the Primal Gods, but despite their best efforts they fell under the sway of Hakkar. Now the champions and their Primal God aspects feed the awesome power of the Soulflayer. Any adventurers brave enough to venture into the foreboding ruins must overcome the High Priests if they are to have any hope of confronting the mighty blood god.

Mar'li has two main forms, like the other bosses in Zul'Gurub. She starts off in her troll form where she can spawn adds and cast 30 yard AoE poison. These spider adds quickly gain strength and size if not killed quickly. When she transforms into her spider form she will web everyone standing near her in place and charge. As soon as she webs everyone she will attack the person with the highest aggro that has not been webbed (usually a healer if they are out of range.)

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For this fight you need two tanks. To start the fight, have a priest Mind Control the Speaker and make the Speaker attack Mar'li. At this point four spiders will spawn that need to be AoE'ed down right away. Once the spiders are down, and the Speaker gets pwned by Mar'li, the tank will pick up aggro and all ranged classes should cluster up outside of her AoE range. So set up like this:

Once the tank gets aggro, all melee apart from the OT begin attacking. Periodically, she will shapeshift into a spider form. When she does this, she'll web all the melee around her and wipe their aggro. She'll then charge the ranged group where the other tank will be waiting to pick up aggro and pull her back to the MT position. The OT is now the main tank, and the MT heads back to the ranged group to pick up the next charge. Be sure the ranged stay clustered up, otherwise it will be difficult for the tank to pick her up right away.

Periodically, a spider will spawn. If the spider is not immediately killed it will grow larger and more powerful and will wipe the raid. Just call it out and have your ranged deal with them right away, they drop quickly.

When in caster form, Mar'li will attempt to life drain someone. Be sure to immediately counter this with an interrupt ability such as Kick or Shield Bash. It is sometimes hard to see if she is life draining or not, so pay attention. Do not let her heal herself; it is a significant amount. There is some debate about the usefulness of mana drain. Some claim that it will not prevent her from casting her life drain, but direct experience from others contradicts this. Mana drain does appear to be a useful tactic.

The OT should tank the Speaker, while the MT tank the boss. The OT take the speaker back to the main raid place. Its pretty fast killing, so the OT will have the time to get to his place and be ready to the Archnopoly. This way you don't need the MC, just two tanks.

04/29/2006 - Tried using the Mind Control method on the Speaker, not sure if he has changed but priest was getting an immune message (or at least that is what they said). Will try again for a definitive answer. If you kill the speaker, however, he will not respawn even after a reset of the encounter.

05/13/2006 - Something that my raid group does is leash the boss so we can pull the speaker and the initial wave of 4 spiders. We have a person mount and aggro, and then pull them all back to the passage leading up to the main spider room, have everyone stand at least behind the second set of torches, Mar'li will then return to her spot, but the Speaker and the initial spawn of spiders will stay. This takes care of the speaker, and the initial (hardest spawn) of spiders when you actually fight her. Note, that I think this method only works if the speaker is alive, if tried after a wipe, Mar'li does not appear to leash, and will stay to fight back in the hallway.

05/18/2006 - Draining mana does work to prevent Mar'li from healing. However it is important that a hunter keep viper sting on at all times, as any positive mana can enable a heal. If Mar'li is at zero (0) mana, we've never seen her heal.

06/06/2006 - If the raid has 3 warriors, a variation is to form a triangle after killing the speaker and initial spiders, with the main group set normally with an OT guarding them. Then you have the other two tanks out in front, spread apart to either side of the path. A hunter is also with a tank. The solo tank gains aggro on the boss, and once webbed the hunter uses distracting shot to draw the boss from the group to the other tank. If it misses the third tank taunts the boss to the other tank. The hunter then moves to the other side and readies distracting shot for the next web attack. This minimizes the time the main group spends within range of the poison AoE, which saves lots of druid/paladin mana.

25/06/2006 - Seems to have been buffed somewhat in 1.11. Higher spawnrates on small spiders for one thing.

26/08/2006 - Mind controlling the speaker works fine in 1.12. Mar'li kills him in 2-4 hits.

26/08/2006 - On the groups before Mar'li they seem to have broken the geometry a bit so we've been getting a lot of evades.

02/10/2006 - Be sure that no members of the raid stand on the rocks/eggs that line the room - the geometry problems have to do with those, and it can cause either trash mobs or Mar'li herself to evade and heal back to full health

14/10/2006 - Druids in bear form are IMMUNE to her web. They can simply charge and taunt her before she even reaches the ranged group.

26/7/2007 - For lousy parties with only 10-15 level 60+, it's enough to have the main tank and 2 people to deal with Mar'Li while the rest of the party takes care of her adds.